


Echoes Fall Off Me

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Episode Related, Episode: s05e04 The End, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-07
Updated: 2009-10-07
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:15:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda for 5x04. Dean's slipping away, and Castiel just holds on tighter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes Fall Off Me

**Author's Note:**

> Coda for 5x04. This is not a happy fic. Title is from R.E.M. Thank you to smilla02 for the beta. Covers 2010-2012, or thereabouts

  
It happens for the first time a year, six months, and two days after Sam leaves. Castiel tracks the time because he knows Dean does, even if he never mentions it. There's a new edge to him, shadows under his eyes. Sometimes he brightens at some lanky, tall figure in the distance, until they turn around, and then Dean's face is a light switched off.

In Iowa, they take out a pocket of Croats, just the two of them. Afterwards, in the light of sunset, Dean looks a little less tired, a charge of energy and the afterburn of adrenaline around him.

When Dean hands Castiel a beer, their fingers touch. Castiel wonders if Dean finds him reassuring as something relatively human.

Dean puts his beer down, licks his lips, and pushes Castiel up against the battered wall of the abandoned farmhouse. Jimmy's soul is long gone, and there's no one to see or protest, on earth, Heaven or Hell, as Dean's tongue pushes into his mouth and Castiel puts his hands gently to Dean's face, kissing him back. Dean's hand slips under the waistband of Castiel's slacks, and Castiel leans into his touch, feeling bright and hot as sunset.

*

They've been at the camp two months when Castiel feels it, a shadow that falls over the earth. The stirring among the angels rustles in his mind, but their voices are garbled. It's been a year since he heard them clearly.

The girl arrives right after. She's too thin, but the clench of her chin makes Castiel think of Dean, and she carries her gun and heavy backpack with ease.

Her hands shake around the glass of whiskey as she tells Dean about Detroit. About Sam.

"So." Tears stand in her eyes. "That's all I know."

Dean turns away from her. Bobby's hands are clenched around the arms of his wheelchair, his knuckles gone white.

The girl startles when Dean kicks his chair across the room, but Castiel doesn't think she's flinching because she's scared.

When Dean walks out of the cabin, Castiel lets him go.

A day later the girl's gone, back to Detroit and the group her mother now leads.

A week later Dean returns, his gaze flat, looking through Castiel. He walks past him, ordering Chuck to take a weapons inventory.

Dean carries a fresh set of hard edges, so that it hurts to look at him.

*

Castiel lies on his cot, staring at the cabin's ceiling. He doesn't need sleep; he rests knowing it's expected, and he finds it a comfort.

Once he was almost persuaded that the answer was to end humanity's suffering and make earth a paradise.

The sound of bootsteps in the darkness, the dip of extra weight onto the cot, are as familiar as if they never ceased.

Dean doesn't touch him, or move. He sits with his head bowed slightly. After listening for a moment to the noises of the woods outside the window and Dean's slow breaths, Castiel grasps Dean's wrist. He pulls, and Dean gives, folding in towards him until his breath is hot against Castiel's skin, lips and tongue moving up along his neck to his mouth. Castiel tugs up Dean's t-shirt, frightened by his own crashing sense of want. Dean bites at Castiel's lower lip, drawing blood.

When Dean's fingers brush over the cord hanging around Castiel's neck, they startle.

But then there's nothing but the feel and taste of sweat-damp skin, the rasp of Dean's breath going faster. Dean pushes into Castiel, too fast, too rough, and Castiel holds onto him tighter, because Dean's slipping away.

*

Lucifer looks up from among his demons and Croats and his face brightens.

Next to Castiel, Dean stops shooting. "Sam." The whisper drops from him with so much hope Castiel's eyes sting.

"No," Castiel says. "It's not him."

Lucifer smiles, slow and tender, like he gets what Dean is going through, and starts moving towards them through the fighting and the smoke.

Dean's face is damp, but Castiel didn't see or feel or hear when he started to weep.

"Listen to me," Castiel says, with rough command. "It's not Sam."

The seconds narrow like a knife's edge before Dean gives his consent with a nod. Castiel touches two fingers to his forehead.

On the shores of the lake near the camp, Dean yanks Castiel around, fingers tearing open the collar of his shirt. For a moment Castiel doesn't understand, until Dean grabs the cord hanging around his neck.

He tugs hard and the cord stings against Castiel's skin as it snaps.

"What good is he, your God? Did you ever find him, _Cas_?" Dean throws the amulet into the lake, puts back his head, and shouts at the sky, "Yes! Okay, Michael? Yes! You godamned fucking sonofabitch. Yes!"

Nothing answers.

  


*

A month goes by. Castiel continues laying on his hands to purge the virus from as many people as he can, the way he sends demons back to hell from their hosts. But there's only one of him, and Dean only allows so many to know what Castiel is, guards him, uses him like a secret weapon.

When the angels go, Castiel senses the abrupt shout of silence on the wind. It's the calm before the storm.

His grace tears out of him in a blaze of white light. If he wasn't alone in the woods, he would have blinded anyone near. He falls, dirt and dead leaves against his palms, dizzy and retching, but nothing comes up.

"Cas, what the hell?" Hours later, it must be, he hears Dean's voice.

Dean crouches over him and the open fear and worry written in his eyes strips years from his face. Hooking his arm around Castiel's shoulders, he drags him to his feet. Damp leaves cling to Castiel's trenchcoat.

"What happened?" Dean starts brushing off the leaves.

Castiel shoves Dean away, so hard he stumbles.

Dean's startled, stunned look sears Castiel.

"Your weapon's broken." Castiel leaves Dean staring, and walks away.

*

An ambush kills two of their people and almost takes Dean too.

After months of sitting, useless, Castiel decides that if Dean's going to die, Castiel might as well go out with him.

Not as if he's good for anything else.

Dean's been limping still from his injuries, and daily telling Bobby where he can shove his advice.

Castiel finds him in his cabin and throws the rifle down onto the table.

"Teach me," he says.

"Sure you want to get your hands dirty?"

They go out into the woods and Dean puts a row of cans on a log. He shows Castiel how to load, aim, and shoot, his hands steady on Castiel's elbow and his shoulder, Dean so close his breath is warm on Castiel's face.

A muscle in Dean's jaw jumps when Castiel finally hits one of the cans dead on.

"That's it," Dean says, voice softened with pride.

Castiel lowers the rifle and watches the pulse twitch in Dean's neck. Dean's hand moves up from Castiel's shoulder, slowly, callused palm and fingers lingering against Castiel's jaw, and Castiel knows. He might joke about their fearless leader, but he'll follow him.

He'll follow him to the end.

~end  



End file.
